Monday, February 27, 2012
World Order - Machine Civilization
I just discovered this great precision performance group. This video seems to be making more of a social statement and I also enjoyed World Order - Mexico and World Order - New York City.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Spring Garden 2010
Spring arrived in El Paso and the garden beckoned once again. We spent part of our Spring Break week getting everything into the ground. Albert broke up the plot by himself because of my crazy schedule and workload but we both got our hands dirty planting seeds and slips. I'm not at all sure that we saved any money on groceries last summer but I have to say there is something quite satisfying about stepping out the back door and picking your own tomatoes or spinach. No question that we are pesticide and noxious chemical free
We are letting a gorgeous bok choy flower and go to seed, hoping to salvage its seeds to replant. The parsley came back nicely as did some of the other herbs. Sage didn't make it through the winter nor did the basils. El Paso's harsh summer sun coupled with unpredictable winters sometimes just wipes out plants we thought would make it. Gardening in the Southwest is completely different from what I knew as a farm child. We don't bother with planting runner beans to climb up corn, my job when I was little. Corn is dirt cheap here and just not worth the water or the space. This year Albert had the idea to siphon water from the fish pond for a little extra fertilize emulsion. The pond gets fresh water and the garden stays moist. Daily we watch over our eggplant, lettuce, garlic, tomatoes and peppers. The beans and zucchini are just beginning to peek out of the starter pots. Every season becomes a new experiment.
Best of all, the mockingbird returned. The day after we planted everything, he was high in the tree singing every song he knew with such joyous abandon. It almost seemed that he was thrilled to see our garden and us digging and messing around in the yard. Come to think of it, having the garden probably does supply a few more bugs, grubs, worms and such for his family's snacks so maybe his joy was sincere. I stood in the backyard watching and listening and finally chirping back at him just to have something to contribute to the conversation.
Fannie the Wonder Dog does not understand our fascination with playing in the dirt but she happily keeps us company and enjoys the mockingbird who sings for all of us.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Is Your Drinking Water Safe in Your State?
This New York Times article and interactive map show the appalling violations of the Clean Water Act nationwide and the difficulties of enforcing compliance. It is distressing but not surprising to see that in Texas 70% of the facilities have had violations with very little success at enforcing corrections. I hope everyone of you who are reading this will boycott bottled water. Use a home filtration system, even a Brita pitcher, and fill up your own non-plastic bottle. Steel bottles are inexpensive, easy to clean, long-lasting and ultimately recyclable. Plastic bottles only contribute to the problem.
A related article debates how much weed killer is in our drinking water.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23water.html?ref=us
A related article debates how much weed killer is in our drinking water.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23water.html?ref=us
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Where the Wild Things Were
Mr. Block's column in the New York Times reminded me of some of the writing we passionately discussed in our Chatham Nature Writing course. I had hoped that Block wouild credit Maurice Sendak for the appropriation of his title of his 46 year old classic Where the Wild Things Are but even so it is a thoughtful coming of age essay. Wasn't there a time in most of our childhoods when we dreamed of taming, befriending a wild creature?
Is Blasting a Mountain Away an Honor?
I have mixed feelings about this monument just as this columnist does. There is so much that could be done to honor great Native Americans but I just don't think this is the best way. When at the same time all over the country, no, actually all over the world, indigenous people are fighting to protect sacred places and environmentalists are trying to protect wild and natural places; how can anyone justify blowing up a mountain? And people applauded? For what?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Seven things you thought you could recycle
My classmate Becca just posted this great article on her blog http://backyardtransliteration.blogspot.com/
Great information and worth sharing here.
Great information and worth sharing here.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
A Sense of Wonder – A reflection on nature writing
This semester of nature writing has expanded my perceptions of nature writing just as last semester’s course on travel writing greatly expanded my views on writing about place. More than ever I think that both are connected. When I travel, I am drawn to natural locations so it is difficult to disentangle writing about place and writing about nature. My personal library has grown too. I have writers on my shelf now that weren’t there before. I have been especially intrigued by Native American writers such as Silko but other writers such as Terry Tempest Williams have touched my life. It was vindicating to read works by writers I knew personally, whose works were already part of my vernacular. Re-reading these authors and discovering new works by them was sort of a validation of what I already believed. This is the last formal Chatham Nature Writing entry on this nature blog. Will the blog continue? Most definitely. It has become a forum for me to express my personal point of view and to share with others.
One thing that has been on my mind is the reason I chose Chatham. I had researched several schools but when I found Chatham and learned of the connection with Rachel Carson and their focus on the environment and nature, it had to be Chatham for me. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had a huge impact on me while I was in high school. Last week at my favorite used book store I came across her book A Sense of Wonder which was written for her nephew but time ran out for her before she finished it. She wrote it in 1956 and it was published by Charles Pratt in 1965. In it she says, “No child should grow up unaware of the dawn chorus of the birds in spring.”
Carson also says, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.“
I am thankful to the good fairies that I was born with that sense of wonder. I have tried to impart the same wonder to my son. I hope that my sense of wonder lasts me all the rest of my days.
One thing that has been on my mind is the reason I chose Chatham. I had researched several schools but when I found Chatham and learned of the connection with Rachel Carson and their focus on the environment and nature, it had to be Chatham for me. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had a huge impact on me while I was in high school. Last week at my favorite used book store I came across her book A Sense of Wonder which was written for her nephew but time ran out for her before she finished it. She wrote it in 1956 and it was published by Charles Pratt in 1965. In it she says, “No child should grow up unaware of the dawn chorus of the birds in spring.”
Carson also says, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.“
I am thankful to the good fairies that I was born with that sense of wonder. I have tried to impart the same wonder to my son. I hope that my sense of wonder lasts me all the rest of my days.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
In a Moment
In a Moment. Serendipity. Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Crash. Seven Pounds. How fast can our lives change in just a moment?
Today I reflect on what we are given and what can be taken away in an instant. Albert and I were involved in a four car accident this afternoon much less than a mile from our house. The statistics are true. Yes, we are going to be alright, mostly banged up and bruised. The hospitals have C-T scans of our heads and multiple x-rays of my spine and leg, then they sent us home with scrip for vast quantities of expensive drugs. No, it was not our fault. We, along with three other cars, were sitting patiently waiting our turn at the four-way stop when a teenager with his dad in the car rammed into the brand new Mustang behind us, forcing our tiny two-seater aluminum Honda hybrid Insight into and under the Kia SUV in front of us. What could have happened in that moment? We all walked and drove away.
I was thrilled to have a half day off from school and was looking forward to a peaceful lunch with Albert. It’s six o’clock and what with stress, nausea and several hours at the hospital, I still haven’t had that lunch. What if we had decided to eat downtown instead of turning West? What if I hadn’t changed lanes? Then someone else would have been the car between the Kia and the Mustang. What if I had stayed to clean my classroom? I didn’t. I thought about my poem that some of you have read. Every choice we make; every action has a reaction. We indeed are all connected.
You might ask what does this have to do with a nature blog? I’ll tell you. We have no idea how long our time will be. When my son first started driving, I worried every time he walked out of the door. What if the next phone call was that dreaded phone call that so many parents receive. But we get complacent. We forget that it could happen to us. Christians believe in a life after death. Muslims believe that what will happen is already written. Native Americans see spirits live on in the trees, the animals and the earth. Buddhists meditate and work toward enlightenment. I don’t know. You don’t either. Maybe they are all correct. Nature is and we are all part of the natural world. Sometimes we have a choice. Sometimes things happen in an instant. In a moment.
It’s been said before, but if you knew that today or tomorrow would be your last day on earth, what would you do? What would you say? Some of my classmates and I have dealt with death or disease in both our lives and our writing. My mother had what she saw as the gift of time. With terminal cancer, she took it as a blessing that she could say everything she had always wanted to say to the people she loved most. But what about those whose life ends in a single heartbeat? What is their message? What is the legacy that each of us leaves behind?
I thought about all my words that are on paper and in this computer. I thought about my son. I thought about my life. When we are struck with catastrophe, everything is stripped away. You figure out very quickly what is most important. My son and his girlfriend saw us on the street and saw my car. They stopped. They drove us to the hospital. I sat on the curb watching the policemen, looking at Albert, at Thomas and Ciara, and I knew what is most important. My car was a great car. I say, to hell with the car. The people I love most in life were there beside me. You want a definition of nature? Of the natural world? It is who we are fundamentally when all the stuff is erased. We are nature and so is everyone else. Everything that is alive matters right now, in this moment. And when we’re gone? Well, who knows? None of us do. But today, I am alive. My family is with me. And I am thankful for that.
6:17 p.m. Mountain Time, 9 April 2009
Today I reflect on what we are given and what can be taken away in an instant. Albert and I were involved in a four car accident this afternoon much less than a mile from our house. The statistics are true. Yes, we are going to be alright, mostly banged up and bruised. The hospitals have C-T scans of our heads and multiple x-rays of my spine and leg, then they sent us home with scrip for vast quantities of expensive drugs. No, it was not our fault. We, along with three other cars, were sitting patiently waiting our turn at the four-way stop when a teenager with his dad in the car rammed into the brand new Mustang behind us, forcing our tiny two-seater aluminum Honda hybrid Insight into and under the Kia SUV in front of us. What could have happened in that moment? We all walked and drove away.
I was thrilled to have a half day off from school and was looking forward to a peaceful lunch with Albert. It’s six o’clock and what with stress, nausea and several hours at the hospital, I still haven’t had that lunch. What if we had decided to eat downtown instead of turning West? What if I hadn’t changed lanes? Then someone else would have been the car between the Kia and the Mustang. What if I had stayed to clean my classroom? I didn’t. I thought about my poem that some of you have read. Every choice we make; every action has a reaction. We indeed are all connected.
You might ask what does this have to do with a nature blog? I’ll tell you. We have no idea how long our time will be. When my son first started driving, I worried every time he walked out of the door. What if the next phone call was that dreaded phone call that so many parents receive. But we get complacent. We forget that it could happen to us. Christians believe in a life after death. Muslims believe that what will happen is already written. Native Americans see spirits live on in the trees, the animals and the earth. Buddhists meditate and work toward enlightenment. I don’t know. You don’t either. Maybe they are all correct. Nature is and we are all part of the natural world. Sometimes we have a choice. Sometimes things happen in an instant. In a moment.
It’s been said before, but if you knew that today or tomorrow would be your last day on earth, what would you do? What would you say? Some of my classmates and I have dealt with death or disease in both our lives and our writing. My mother had what she saw as the gift of time. With terminal cancer, she took it as a blessing that she could say everything she had always wanted to say to the people she loved most. But what about those whose life ends in a single heartbeat? What is their message? What is the legacy that each of us leaves behind?
I thought about all my words that are on paper and in this computer. I thought about my son. I thought about my life. When we are struck with catastrophe, everything is stripped away. You figure out very quickly what is most important. My son and his girlfriend saw us on the street and saw my car. They stopped. They drove us to the hospital. I sat on the curb watching the policemen, looking at Albert, at Thomas and Ciara, and I knew what is most important. My car was a great car. I say, to hell with the car. The people I love most in life were there beside me. You want a definition of nature? Of the natural world? It is who we are fundamentally when all the stuff is erased. We are nature and so is everyone else. Everything that is alive matters right now, in this moment. And when we’re gone? Well, who knows? None of us do. But today, I am alive. My family is with me. And I am thankful for that.
6:17 p.m. Mountain Time, 9 April 2009
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